This year’s Ours Ottawa Bears BBQ will be held on Saturday July 7th at Vincent Massey Park Section O. It is free of charge for members, non members of the Bears are welcome to attend for a charge of $10.00. Parking available close by for a fee. Hope to see many of you there.

Perfect for those who want to rough it or for those who are more into “glamping” and want to be pampered.

Note: Ours Ottawa Bears is not collecting money for this event. All arrangements and payments must be made directly through the Plein Bois camping office but please let us know once you’re booked so we can keep you informed about the group’s activities.

Adam Frey accepted a cheque on behalf of the Northern Lights Refuge of the proceeds of the Ours Ottawa Bears’ event “Beards! Bears! and Beer!” which was held earlier this year. This is the second year that the Northern Lights Refuge (https://www.facebook.com/northernlightsrefuge) has been selected by the reigning Mr. Ottawa Bear as the designated charity to receive money raised by Ours Ottawa Bears at its various events. Thank you to all those who helped make this possible.

The annual general meeting of the Ours Ottawa Bears took place on Sunday, April 15 at Jack Purcell Community Centre at which time a new executive board was elected to replace the interim board that was appointed last October.

Elected were:

Chairman: Lars Valmestad

Secretary: Brian Murphy

Treasurer: Ted Ledingham

Events Coordinator: Pierre Bigras

Also a few bylaw changes were voted in including:

Renaming the position of President to Chairman

Removing the following positions from the board: MOB Coordinator, Vice President

As most of you already know this year’s Mr. Ottawa Bear was a resounding success and helped raise some much needed funds to help rescue LGBTQ+ refugees who are being persecuted, tortured and killed in countries where being gay is against the law and sometimes punishable by death.